Posts Tagged ‘Holi’

After more than a decade , I finally got to be in a situation where I could be in India , in my home city at precisely the same moment when the festival of holi was to be celebrated, My Mama ji’s (maternal Uncle) daughter was getting married and she had managed to get me to promise her that I will be there in Punjab. The wedding was to be on 19th march in my Nana (maternal Grandfather) house, which is 5-6 hours from Chandigarh and if you go at my speed it could be done in 4 hours 30 minutes.. Since she was also going from Uk along with her Fiancée we all had only a few days to manage everything.

The ladies sangeet was to be on 16th and my flight to reach Chandigarh was on 15th and holi was on 17th , 18th was to be the day when girls side go to the boy’s side for the Shagun ceremony which was again to be in a village nearer to Amritsar, again a 5-6 hours journey, it was going to be a hectic schedule. My friends knew I was going to come and everyone was Like I had to make sure I would be with them on HOLI, so much so that some suggested to miss everything and be there, emails-phone calls , exchanged which involved a lot of swearing , shouting , but then it was fun thinking about it now.

So the journey began I landed at chandigarh airport to find my best matey Babbar at the airport, what I had not realised was he was not alone , a few others too turned up.. Cherry came, Sunjeet turned up from ambala, and my cousin Noni too turned up.

Fun time started from the airport itself, I had planned that I will leave by 3pm but one thing led to the other only to start for my village about 6pm in evening, the moment I left the city disaster struck, typical with me, things never go to plan , the rear tyre burst, “OH NO”, opened the boot to look for the spare to only find that the spare was also punctured, Not a good start at all.Thankfully there was a gentleman coming from the other side on his bike who gave Me and My punctured tyre a Lift, to a nearby village, I knocked on a house of the guy who fixes punctures stayed. He was kind enough to open and do the needful, after getting all that sorted I started off once again towards my village.

Thankfully nothing un-towards happened on the way other than the amount of phonecalls I was getting from my relatives , as according to them I was supposed to have reached home by 7pm NOT Started towards home at 7pm , One good thing happened the traffic seemed to ease out at night, which was good for me to get used to driving in India after so many many years soon I was back into INDIA MODE, zooming in and out, giving two hoots to the traffic coming from the right or the Red light on the way . The main roads were very good but as I went off the main road , it was chaos the BADAL Akali Govt. In all their wisdom suddenly decided to dug up all the village connecting roads , have their contractors put the raw material on the sides.. Election Gimmicks I guess to get votes, I was not happy god know how many times I abused these Govt officials.

Anyway to cut the Story short because this is supposed to be an article on the 17th March , I reached home about 2am, the bed had been laid for me , I met everyone , talked for a bit and off to Zzzzzzzz land. Next day we got busy in doing some work, the ladies sangeet started, and my phone would not stop ringing because everyone at Chandigarh was asking When am I starting, I had with lot of persuasion managed to make all my relatives aunty’s and uncles agree to the fact that I have to return.. The fun carried on till about 11pm where everyone started to pack up, and go to sleep , since the function was in the village it was just a family affair , come 11 pm I sat in my car and Zooomed back to Chandigarh, Reached Babbar’s house at approximately 4-5am in the morning. I was so damn tired I went to sleep ..

Early morning I was woken up to the sound of HORNSSSSSSSsss – LOUD MUSIC – TRUMPETS etc, kids were running around on the road outside, neighbours were putting color on each other It felt so fresh, I walked out of the house to be bombarded with Colour .. Rest of my friends started turning up , I was meeting them after more than a decade, everyone had changed so much, a few had got married , a few had become parents , some had lost their hair , It was fantabulos.

Whoever came to the house was targeted with color – water anything that came to hand

That is me filling the Bucket and making sure I put it all over Babbar .. 🙂

and he in return joined the kids to make sure , he has his revenge on ladies .. boooooooooooooo too him 🙂

We decided to go uphill for a picnic, The ladies did a wonderful job I must say with all the food, we men were responsible for the DRINKS 🙂 , started towards Morni hills on the way saw a lot of people enjoying the festival especially these girls , who were standing from inside the sunroof, singing their head off , drinking too which made them go louder and louder, but I guess the idea was to enjoy, they were surly enjoying, we enjoyed just watching them 🙂

Drove for sometime in the hills singing , dancing , on way found a little stream of water running , so stopped for our picnic, the kids in the group were having fun with me as their english chachu, couple of them were seeing me for the first time , so I guess they were all Ga Ga of a foreign returned Chachu.. they started to play with me

I also joined them in the fun and took them on in the battle of the Water …

When I was unable to control them , I had to do the MAN THING.. I had to take LAW in my hands and MAN-HANDLE the kids into submission and I WON.. yooooooooooooooooo hooooooooooooooo , bring it on… KIDDO’s

yess , I took each one of them and dunked them in that stream MUUUU HA HA HA HA HA HA .. Bad chachu I guess

Food time came, ladies had prepared some delicious food, for the Foreign returned, making sure there was not much spices etc, as it was only my second day in india,I did not want to get sick , But saying that by then so much alcohol had gone inside that it would have been pretty Safe to eat anything .. as I am sure you all know that “Darooo peene se PEt ke saare Kide mar jaate hain”.. 🙂 he he he .. don’t ask me to translate that in English , it wont be funny then 🙂 .. but just for those who don’t understand hindi (Drinking Alcohol, kills all the germs in the stomach), see not funny at all ..

Food time

The Long walk back to the parked cars ..

The Whole gang well almost as a few left to find another place uphill to have coffee ..

Ended up on top of a hill where I in my tipsy mood had fun with the kids ..

Disclaimer :- Long post .. But people who love their friends and miss them will understand it all

This post has taken a long time to be published, has been sitting in my drafts for so long. been editing it so often..

Here I am trying to revisit the good old days as they say , college times .. I am sure a lot of people by now know how we both met, it was an astonishing moment , One day Ravi (my first friend in college) came up to me, I was tall and big had big huge moustaches gave the impression that I was wickedddddddd (no one knew the secret, it was the other way round actually) .. saying he has had an argument with someone , set up a time and we have to go to beat up this guy.. So we went to the ground behind the campus.. Me and Ravi… in a few minutes another guy came with a Short, stocky, Smart Sardar..who had an immaculate turban on..

Till today I have no idea why it happened or how it happened instead of a FIGHT it ended up by making a deal that instead of a big fight why not let Ravi and the guy settle their differences one to one.. Brilliant , me and the sardar shook hands and That day I met my best, my darling my sweety pie my cutie pie he he he he Sukhvir Singh (AKA babbar).. till date he is my best mate.. Thus started the days of glory, through him I met so many people rather all my mates now I met through him, oh boy but was he angry, he was short but his temper oh my god, no matter who was in front, he went for it..

So that’s how we met, College time was wow time for me because of friends I had, we did a lot of things together movies, roaming around, NCC etc etc.. A few points I wanted to share here reminiscing the good old days..

Each time I have called him up from UK, it brings that COOL sense of happiness to hear him say hello and when you speak he recognises the voice in millionth of a second and then the voice changes to “OYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE MANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN”.. now that is the best feeling one can have, especially for those who have left friends-family behind and come to foreign shores.. Then during the conversations he will always say “TUN AAJAA YAAR MANN” (you just come).. That is the moment where you feel like dropping everything and Just go.

We both have argued with each other but I don’t remember any occasion where we have fallen out on any thing, almost every evening after college was spent with him , a couple of others ( I will write about them too).. I use to live the furthest so I would go to his house in evening and then from there we went wherever we had to go , to spend the rest of the evening.

A few incidents come to mind each time I think of Babbar, I remember during NCC Days we had a camp for 15 days in a village in Punjab , it was Diwali day and we planned to go to the gurudwara Sahib , on way back there was a brick Kiln.. and you know how big-hearted Punjabi’s are.. the owner called us in and invited us to a glass or two of MILK , special milk , this was full of Bhang and a couple of KILO of Jalebi’s .. NCC camps hardly get stomach full of food so we drank and ATE..

Then moved to the camp only to find we were getting high and The Commanding officer too saw us , Not a good idea , by the time we reached the camp he had everything ready .. WE were to Fall in within 5 minutes and Our dear Sukhi was to lead us in parade , The punishment was for us to march while for him was to go over to the other side of the POND and shout commands .. I on other hand was saved as I was representing Chandigarh in Skeet shooting so I was sent to air force station to do that .. The day off it was to be we ended up working the whole of chandigarh group. I was so drunk and high that I shot 9 out of 10 clay pigeons BRING THEM ON.. sukhi was not happy when I came back as they were made to go up and down the ground a few times …

I have somehow felt that Babbar has always been my savior for some reason each time I was in trouble he would be there, In one wedding a few guys had a tiff with me and I found my self alone, as a guy asked me to dare come out of the marriage hall.. I being a scary cat which i am was still thinking of what to do .. In comes Babbar and he gave them guys such a blasting they will remember all their life..

Also a few coincidences have so happened that It is really a miracle that we have not got into serious trouble , Once I went up to his house to find that he was getting ready on asking , he just said good i turned up and asked me to accompany him , it was later I found out that a guy we knew , had some sort of fight with guys , there We were together going to beat up the guys …

I am not sure how my life would have been had it not been for him, he has been always there through thick and thin always .. He was the one who rode my scooter which i had just spend thousand to get repainted and all .. and drove it right into an oncoming car.. my heart broke into pieces to see the scooter again mangled , who cares about the bruises suffered by him, he is a man he will Live 🙂

He got married when I came to UK , I missed his wedding and i will never forgive myself I so wanted to attend his wedding , he has a beautiful wife who is again a gem of a person .. Each time I have gone to india they have not let me go to my own house as my home was all locked up , I end up spending my time with them, I jsut have to phone him up and tell him arriving on such and such date and he makes sure that he takes time off work and all ..

I am truly blessed to have him, I know we hardly speak on phone so much time goes by , but the moment i book my tickets he is the first one to know and when i tell him THAT voice haunts me MANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN COMEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and that excitement .. We have done some weird things during our college times some good some bad but now we sit down thinking they all bring smiles to the face.

He is such a person , he has not got a FB account, he hardly uses email, I email him but he doesn’t reply , I hope he reads this article where I want to shout at top of my voice I HATE YOU BABBAR 🙂 .. Oh man I miss him so much. If you are reading this do you remember the days my friend , Going to Patiala for Ashwani’s wedding on way back , we almost got Shot by Punjab police thinking we were some sort of Terrorists ..

Do you remember the uphill trips, the going up by the back route , the fountain …

Do you remember the camps NCC lucknow, Patiala, Ludhiana, The clearing of the PABT written test in hisar .. The SSB interviews at various places .. especially the one in Dehradun 🙂 that was hilarious we had fun brother .. Still cant understand how we could not get through.. the ones who everyone said should get into army. How the Sikh guy who refused to go inside a Temple because it was a HINDU temple got selected.. and how another one who hated muslims got through.

But I guess we are better off now, Had we got through I am sure we would both be Dead by now, trying to get over an enemy tank to our side of the land 🙂 All that happen’s .. happens for good.

And best of all This is hilarious (if you have reached till here everyone listen to this), I got a job as a manager-instructor all in one in a computer institute which had just opened , it had no students as it was still being renovated, Babbar was un employed at that time, I would get up in morning as I headed to work his house would be on way.. I would pick him up and go to this institute to open it .. waiting for potential students to come etc.. around 11ish the Whisky shop would open and we would buy half a bottle from there ordering some samose or something from katani sweets.. Pour half each in Big steel glasses and have it .. eat the samosa’s .. THEN close the shutters down of the institute.. and head for Punjab University for a GEDI he he he he By the time we reached UNI we use to be up in the seven sky ..

Each day we met , each day there was some funny thing that happened If I start to write all of them It will turn out to be a book.. I long to get back to maybe repeat a few of these events..

The going to weddings, we had a pact that anyone who had a wedding in family, all friends will goto that wedding.. one I remember is a party I got an invite to , it was a very private. I had not clue about, as was promised all of us reached .. it so happened that in that party there were more of us then the actual invitees.. it was embarrassing but WHO CARES we had fun ate stomach full and drinks too 🙂

The late night Pinjore garden trips, The various arguments over girls.

The trekking expeditions, getting lost in jungle, almost getting one of our big huge friend killed ..

The sundays of Playing cards, the whole days spent on a RS. 10. BET it was war, me and him always the partner winning losing.

Another Hilarious episode was Three of us on Two scooters, Babbar & vikram on one and me alone of another one.. It was Babbar’s Elder brothers scooter.. we are going nicely , a roundabout came.. I went straight shouting come this way , come this way .. Babbar went left looking at me shouting no no this way .. They failed to see the curb on the road and BAM.. both of them on the Road.. Poor Scooter.. the tension was not of the bruises again it was how to get the Scooter sorted before big brother found out.. We had a mechanic who did all this jobs for us he he he he ..

I was doing some classes for something, One of our mates JOHAR came from hisar to meet , he and Babbar came to where I was .. I sneaked out .. now again Babbar & johar on one scooter , me on another we are going .. me following them and Mr. Babbar suddenly decided to turn Right .. BAM I went into them and they both went flying.. Again forget the bruises the scooter needs to be checked ..

The festival celebrations, the arguments whose house we would end of celebrating .. The first EVER dance party organised .. Was by him in his house on the roof .. so many girls came, luckily I was invited to it too..

The Holi times, we would all get together and make sure we went to EVERY girls house we knew, the look on their faces was PRICELESS.. the OH look boys have come to this girls house..

A couple of weddings we got done of the Lovers , whose parents would not agree..

Some things in life one can never forget.. I have had such a beautiful life that I just long to od it all over again , wish there was a roll back switch to do it .. I would not want to do anything ever differently. All that happened when it happened AS it happened I would love to repeat it all over again ..

Those were the good old days .. and Then LIFE Happened and we all separated ..